Jeanne d'arc

What a day we had today....... we woke up at 8:20am after a good nights sleep except for the rooster that started at 6am, however I had read about the rooster and knew what it was so I just turned over and went back to sleep.
We had no hurry today as we were heading into Paris. Ellie bought tickets for the catacombs online and the earliest visit we could get was 5:45pm which was fine with us as that would give us a chance to look around the Christmas markets.
We took the 100 mile drive to Paris and this is where the day started to go wrong.
On the drive my best friend phoned me to tell me that his mum had died earlier in the week as I hung up I triggered a speed camera and I’m assuming it was faulty as I was doing 60mph on cruise control and the speed limit is 70mph.
We had found a parking spot on park4night outside Paris in the town of Meudon and the description said it was a 5 minute walk to the station but in actual fact it was a 30 minute walk and when we got there the station we wanted was closed.
There were some young french girls making a YouTube video there in English so we asked them where we could get the train and they told us there was another platform around the corner so off we went and while I checked our route on the Paris Metro app, Ellie bought the tickets.
The train came and as I tracked us on the metro app I realised we were on completely the wrong train because our line wasn’t even showing up and the train was travelling to stations that didn’t exist on our app until we were 3 stops in but then we were on the metro line.
Alarm bells were already ringing by then and panic was setting in that we were getting further away from Wanda who we had left locked up in the woods by a lake and we wouldn’t be able to find our way back.
After 30 minutes we pulled into a station in the heart of Paris, exited the train and went to get on the underground but the barriers to leave the platform wouldn’t open. After 3 attempts a security guard came over, asked us where our tickets were and we showed him and he said they were wrong and didn’t look very happy at all. The fact that we couldn’t speak a word of french was just adding insult to injury. Then another guard came over who did speak English and he was frustrated that we couldn’t produce a ticket for the journey we had just taken. It turned out that the line we had taken was run by a different company and we had bought the wrong tickets, which obviously we didn’t realise and after telling them both he did say that he should fine us both €100 euros but as we are obviously idiots he would fine only one of us €50 euros and we paid the fine there and then.
Not a good start to Paris, but like our last visit this seems to be a city we don’t get on with.
From there we did get the tube and 2 stops later we were 1/2 mile from the Louvre museum and we started walking. Next to the Louvre there was a Christmas food market which was expensive but we looked away before I checked my watch and realised it was now 4:45pm.
Then I checked google maps and realised the catacombs were 2 miles away and an hour walk.
For the life of me I don’t know why we didn’t get on the tube again especially as we had tickets, but we did walk and got there just in time for our ticket time.
The Catacombs were amazing, miles and miles of tunnels deep underground and an estimated 7 million bodies all stacked up on top of each other. It sounds gruesome but in actually fact, each year has it’s own tombstone and visitors are super quiet and respectful, I’m glad we got to visit as this was also high up on my photography list and last time we came they were closed.
From there we walked back to the concierge building and by now it was dark and getting cold and we were hoping to spend the rest of the evening wandering the Christmas markets, but on reaching what we thought was the Christmas market actually turned out to be the night run of Paris for cancer. Gutted.
We turned around and our legs and feet were really aching now. It was 8pm and we had spent 6 hours solid walking. We headed for the Louvre market and on the way I did manage to photograph the Louvre pyramid before finally getting back to the food markets where I got a paella and Ellie got a chicken curry which did fill us up. Then it was back on the tube to reverse course back to the station where we got fined and we actually got there.
We couldn’t work out what ticket to buy to Meudon so Ellie went to the booth and got us tickets and it turns out they weren’t on the machines anyway so we couldn’t have bought one like that. 40 minutes later we were back at Meudon station and took the 30 minute walk uphill back to Wanda.
14.5 miles we had walked and it was now 10:15pm, we were both knackered. I honestly felt like crying with relief once we had got back and just as I sat down with a beer who pulled up next to us??
The vanlifers!!
We are in a big car park in the woods, we were alone but out of this whole car park these idiots park right on top of us. Open and close doors for 35 minutes and talk right outside our windows until finally at 11:10pm they shut there sliding door and put there diesel heater on because they’ve let all there heat out leaving the door open.
Vanlifers really are a different breed, the entitled, selfish idiots of the road and this has just reinforced that belief.Read more